Congratulations to Renée M. Schell for her poem “The Scarf,” chosen by this year’s judge Timothy Geiger!
Tim says, “The complexity of “The Scarf,” with its confession and subtle remorse, and its time-shift memory drawing back to that harrowing moment of maternal concern–-concluding in the beautiful image of the scarf’s busy tongue, totally won me over.”
We look forward to featuring the winning poem in our 2025 issue.
Renée M. Schell’s debut collection, Overtones, was published in 2022 by Tourane Poetry Press. Her poetry appears in New Verse News, Catamaran Literary Reader, Naugatuck River Review, and many other journals and anthologies, including Women in a Golden State (Gunpowder Press 2025). She was lead editor for the anthology (AFTER)life: Poems and Stories of the Dead. She holds a Ph.D. in German Studies from Stanford University and also taught for seven years at a Title I school in San José, California. Renée’s work has been nominated for Best of the Net. You can find her at www.reneemschell.org